In hospitals and laboratories, several chemical and diagnostic analyses are done by automatic analyzing equipment. The level of automation varies, but the present trend is to streamline the analyzing work as much as possible. As many more complicated analyzes must be done by highly educated laboratory personnel involving a lot of manual work, the productivity and throughput of a laboratory and individual analyzers has been low. If the automation rate is increased, more of the work can be performed automatically inside the automatic system without involvement of highly skilled personnel. Ideally, laboratory assistants simply load samples in racks into the analyzing apparatuses and laboratory chemists and biologists may concentrate on interpretation of the results and managing the operation of the laboratory. Such a system provides a good throughput combined with high certainty and quality of the work.
In order to enable the high rate of automation, many automated features are needed. One of the features is reliable management of sample liquids, reagents and other fluids needed for the operation of the analyzer. This involves sample vessels, reagent vessels and reaction vessels and means for transferring them within the automated analyzer. Another particularly important feature when the automated analyzer handles sensitive samples and/or utilizes volatile reagents is the use of a capped reaction vessel. However, capped reaction vessels introduce an additional mechanical problem when used on-board automated instrumentation: they must be automatically opened and closed. The following patent documents disclose some of the typical systems currently used in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,866,820 shows a reaction vessel with a cap having an additional member for automatically opening it. In this system, the reaction vessel is opened and closed by moving a lid that is arranged on the top of the cap sideways with a probe. The probe is mounted on robotic or other automatic means for transferring a pipette. The vessel is opened by transferring the lid sideways by pushing it with the plunger. Herein the opening and closing of the lid are two separate operational steps needed when dispensing the liquid. Thus, the sideways moving lid and use of a movement of the pipette transferring means increased the time needed for pipetting considerably. The structure of the lid is also rather complicated. Various penetrable caps are also known. Problems relating to such caps are the force needed for penetration of the cap, mechanical damaging of the cap when penetrated, and most importantly, danger of contamination of the pipette needle. U.S. Pat. No. 7,717,284 discloses a flip cap that is operated by hand. Therefore it is not suitable for automated processes. However, these are good examples of the known reaction vessels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,494 discloses chemical reagent storage vessels and tops that can be opened for distribution of reagents within.